There exists already a broad range of heat exchangers, most of them using metal fins. The heat exchanging capacity of these fins is optimised in such a way that further improvements are expected to be minimal, but even minimal improvements would be highly appreciated, especially in the automotive field as this would enable car producers to miniaturise the heat exchangers and thereby lower the weight of the cars.
A disadvantage of finned heat exchangers is their dependency on the flow direction of the fluid passing the fins, therefore it was proposed in the art to use isotropic open cell foams instead of finned structures as heat exchange enhancing structures in heat exchangers. Such foamed heat exchangers are described in e.g. FR2738625 and WO 03/100339.
One of the problems observed in the production of such open cell metal foam heat exchangers is that the assembly of the open cell metal foam heat exchanger is a labour intensive activity. Slicing or other machining processes of open cell metal foam and also other open cell porous media can cause the open cell porous medium to compress locally, to disrupt locally or to deteriorate the open cell porous structure and thus also of the heat exchanging properties of the open cell porous medium.